Bloom

[Chillalex]

last week i was contacted with an opporunity to make a little bit of profit making a casual game (Read; puzzle)

So we wracked our brains, quickly came up with an idea which ill explain later, and I've already started work.

The game is called BLOOM, and focuses on Blooming flowers in chains for points. Players rotate the globe to play the game (theres alot of details ive not included yet, but we have mechanics in place)

There are NO pixel shaders, its being produced on a zero budget, therefore grass is all standard modelling (whole scene reaches 23,000 tris)

Concept sketch

First day of work/modelled.

I'll post any more info I feel is useful, later

edit: my original model of hand-made grass was about 60,000 tris. Damn.

Edited September 4, 2007 by Chillalex

[Chillalex]

tiny promo shot so far

done the water that jets in from the right

[bigpoppn]

It looks pretty cool.Not a casual game.I'm not a fan of puzzle games but it looks good so far.

[Fozy]

Oh my god, that looks fucking cool.

[Joe =/]

HURRY UP I WANNA PLAY.

[Spectre]

What are the Odds if this went on the marketplace or Playstation Network. That Be cool

Anywayz looks really good so far cant wait to see more.

BTW Alex This may be a stupid Question but are you a Graphic Design Artist, like as a job, not just stuff you Show here? just wondering.

[Nemo]

i cant wait to hack that shit.

[Joe =/]

lmao

[phil]

Hmm. This game's caught my interest. It does look rather good. Keep 'em coming, Chillalex.

[Chillalex]

Great to see it getting some attention! Its only a simple little thing.

What are the Odds if this went on the marketplace or Playstation Network. That Be cool

Anywayz looks really good so far cant wait to see more.

BTW Alex This may be a stupid Question but are you a Graphic Design Artist, like as a job, not just stuff you Show here? just wondering.

We had looked in to creating something for Xbox360 hardware for the marketplace (I assume thats X360?) but not for this. It couldnt get on those platforms I dont think, as the purpose of this project was a deal we made with something else. Ideally it'd be perfect on wii-ware when that exists, as the remote would control it perfectly... oh well!.

Im not a graphic design artist nope. I dont have a job, I'm a student, though I'm training to be a Games artist/concept artist (environment based)

[Fozy]

Stop talking about it and design this awesome looking game then!

[Subrick]

That looks awesome. The tentacle looks like the one from the HL2 beta.

[Aero]

if it was a flash game, you could still play it on the wii

[Chillalex]

I'm aware of this... but apart from everything else, Flash has terrible 3D capabilitys.

grass is being a whore

redone it, bit more style, and its fine form wise but technically its annoying. Playing with mip-mapping and anti aliasing.

Edited September 7, 2007 by Chillalex

[Chillalex]

New grass. Poly count bumped up to 30,000 tris though it should still run fine.

The new approach to the grass was issues we were having with alpha channels, so I've just modelled it all, in a cirlicue shape around the globe repeated three times. I felt three was a number in-fitting with the style (not 4) and the form of the grass had more thought put in to it; its not just plastered all over the globe.

I had come up with a planar solution to the grass ( I might have renders knocking around somewhere) and the entire scene came to 9,000 tris but of course the method meant there'd always be a bald patch in the center, so I got sick of it all and given I can't use shaderfx, this is the best I think possible.

It also makes the globe more visible - before it wasnt, which was stupid, as I'd spent quite a few polys on the globe and it just wasnt visible. I've baked improved textures on to it now, based on the first render I'd done for this game a short while back now - I loved the yellow sun beating down on the green.

Been working on the Hard level, no renders yet but its pretty much done.

And heres a shot of the underside of the globe, where the water pool is.

[Subrick]

Amazing.

[bigpoppn]

So you're doing this without a budget at all??Stunning.It looks great and I like the photo with the water pool.

[Subrick]

If this game goes on XBL then it would make a lot of money.

[Chillalex]

So you're doing this without a budget at all??Stunning.It looks great and I like the photo with the water pool.

Word. Coding is C++ and the engine used isnt strictly free, but the guy I'm working with got it for free because he helped test it, and modelling is mainly blender.

Again target platform is PC

maybe XBL if this deal falls through

Updates

done the font, done the hard level, added some more decoration to the trees, modelled the flowers ("blooms", which you dont see) and likewise, animated a particle effect.

Easy Level (final)

Hard Level (Final, slight post production Bloom effect added to see what its like)

HUD Layout & font... needs a bit of work.

Of course with a name like "Bloom" we couldn't resist adding in a bloom lighting effect. Its added over the top of the engine which is why we can use it - shaderfx such as normal mapping etc is what we can't use as the engine doesnt support it. I don't know if it'll add much yet, but its a technique in fashion now (and I'm trying to play off alot of trends atm)

Edit: tell me if you like the white flowers. They were in my sketches but im not now 100% sure they work.

Edited September 9, 2007 by Chillalex

[Subrick]

The white flowers are good.

[Jonny]

Make a tech video of it.

This looks like a photoshop conspiracy to me.

Edited October 24, 2007 by Jonny

[Spectre]

In Game informer i was readin about indie games like yours, one was called Flower, and it look similar to yours Alex.

[Chillalex]

really? shit. I don't think we're intending to sell it any more to be honest, sort of gone off the boil until we both have real time.

Of course it is jonny, you twat, its visualisations at the moment so post pro shaders were all added in in photoshop. The models and backgrounds etc were all in engine though, just havent added any bloom lighting nor anti aliasing. I've lost the build I had since I formatted my drives.

[Nemo]

how long will it take to beat the game?

[Chillalex]

32 minutes